Hubble malfunction forces NASA to delay Atlantis launch until January (Hubblesite.org) The fifth and final service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope is to be postponed until January as a mystery malfunction on Saturday crippled the observatory’s ability to transmit data to Earth. The STS-125...

The Large Hadron Collider is now officially safe in the eyes of the law (and no, that's not because it broke down). Credit: CERN Oh no! It’s all over. The US Large Hadron Collider lawsuit filed by Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho has failed. On Friday, Hawaiian Federal Judge Helen Gillmor officially...

The second stage of Falcon 1, functioning perfectly with the curvature of the Earth below (SpaceX) Today marks the day when the first ever commercial space vehicle was launched into orbit. SpaceX will be relieved that Flight 4 of the Falcon 1 rocket was successful; the previous three had failed. Flight...

An artist impression of one of the most intensely magnetic phenomena in our known Universe, the magnetar (ESO/L. Calcada) It was identified as a gamma-ray burst, resulting from a massive explosion in a distant, young galaxy. Then astronomers realised that this flaring object was much closer to home,...

Artist impression of Cassini orbiting Saturn (NASA) In a previous Astroengine article, I explored the possibility that the variation in radioactive decay rates may be synchronised with Earth’s orbital variations in distance from the Sun. Naturally, this would be a huge discovery, possibly questioning...

Twisted Physics Logo It’s that time of the week, time for the rampaging hoard of space writers to voice their views across the blogosphere. This week, we are presented with a great variety from my fellow bloggers dotted over the planet by Jennifer Ouellette at Twisted Physics. She had the misfortune...

The Long-March II-F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-7 spaceship plus three crew blasts off (Xinhua/Li Gang) China has high hopes to be the third nation to successfully carry out a spacewalk after launching three taikonauts into orbit today. According to officials, the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft has successfully...

So far, so good. A static fire test for the upcoming Flight 4 is a success for SpaceX and Falcon 1 (SpaceX) The run-up to Flight 4 of SpaceX Falcon 1 appears to proceeding nicely. Scheduled for a late-September launch, the rocket has been rolled out onto its South Pacific launch pad and prepared for...

Thar she blows! Solar Cycle 24 sunspots make their first appearence since January (SOHO MDI image showing Cycle 24 polarity) This day has been a long time coming. Ever since the beginning of Solar Cycle 24 back on January 4th 2008, solar physicists have been eagerly awaiting the fireworks to begin…...

A rare sight. Atlantis has been rolled out to its launchpad for the October 11th Hubble mission, whilst Endeavour will remain on standby in its capacity as the STS-400 rescue mission (NASA) This is a historic photo opportunity. Rarely do we see two shuttles rolled out onto different launchpads at the...